Monday, October 14, 2013

Book Review: John Calvin's Sermons on Ephesians

I love the variety in Calvin's writings. There are really five strains: The Institutes, his commentaries, his polemical writings, his letters, and his sermons. Technically his sermons were not written by him, but transcribed by a faithful man in his congregation. Each of these types of writing shows a different aspect of Calvin's ministry though they interconnected. I have now read his sermons on Deuteronomy,Micah,the Beatitudes, and now Ephesians. I find his sermons thoroughly edifying. He does a good job of opening the text. He speaks to the people, which gives the sermons a very different feel from his other writings. There are of lot "let us" and "we must", etc. He is not afraid to take tangents when he feels it necessary. For example,he spends an entire sermon explaining baptism following Ephesians 5:26. The sermons are straight forward and not hard to understand. He repeats himself throughout each sermon to add emphasis. While there are not "points," he will often say something like "And that is Paul's point here." Or "so that is what we need to see for our first point. He will occasionally take shots at the papists or the libertines, but this is not frequent. A good help to anyone preaching through or studying Ephesians.

No comments:

Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud on their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; to bind the kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron. Psalm 149:5-8